LIVERPOOL.- This summer, during the height of the UK wedding season, Sudley House opens an exhibition of wedding outfits that reveals the changing face of marriage over the last 150 years.
"Hitched: Wedding Clothes and Customs" is on display from 23 July 2010 until Spring 2011.
From an elegant 19th century white silk taffeta wedding dress to the sharp suits of a 21st century civil partnership, "Hitched: Wedding Clothes and Customs" explores how, despite significant changes in society, marriage continues to play an important role in many people's lives.
Every cultural group around the world has its own dress code and customs linked to the wedding ceremony. This exhibition looks at wedding dress and customs of different communities including the Jewish, Chinese and Travelling communities.
When Dixie, her husband of 38 years, died a year-and-a-half ago, after a six-month battle with cancer, 65-year-old Diana Airey’s world fell apart. “I miss him dreadfully,” she wrote. “I know life has to go on, but I have lost all my confidence. Dixie was a fabulous man. He was great at choosing my clothes and he would always tell me how great I looked. Since his death, I haven’t been able to summon up any interest in what I wear; I hardly go shopping. I’ve just been feeling low.”
What Diana, or Di, as her friends in the Oxfordshire village of Warborough call her, needed was a kick-start. “I reached the point where I was starting to think, do I carry on with my life, waiting to see what happens or do I give myself a little nudge,” she said.
Curator of costume and textiles Pauline Rushton says: “Despite the number of people getting married actually falling, the average cost of weddings continues to rise and now stands at almost £20,000. This tells us something about the importance still placed on an institution which has been part of our society for thousands of years.”
"Hitched: Wedding Clothes and Customs" brings together items from National Museums Liverpool’s own costume collection and private loans to build up a picture of weddings from Victorian times to the present day.
"Hitched: Wedding Clothes and Customs" will tour to other venues in the region during 2011.
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